Denial of DeKaiba
by Ciu Sune
Summary: One Shot. Seto Kaiba is sick, and since Mokuba has an urgent meeting to attend, none other than Ryou Bakura is asked to help. And was it mentioned that Seto is in serious denial about his cold? (please excuse the dumb title) Part of the Sick-Fic Arch.


Once again my poor Koibito is sick! For the second time in two weeks! She requested that I write her a fic to ease her pain the first time, and I finished it by the second she got sick ;; (This is a one shot by the way)

Erm . . . her cold-muddled mind had her mouth ask me to write a Yu-gi-oh fic. One with Kaiba and Ryou as the main characters. And Kaiba is the one who is sick. (Did I mention that this is a one-shot?)

. . .Please keep in mind that I've never done a YGO fanfiction before, and that this sick-fic will mostly likely (make that ALL likely, I think that Dragon Knights thing was a dud) be my specialty and onlyalty; plotless and fluffy (and a one-shot). Of course, that's what Hieica wanted, so this is not a problem this time. Keep in mind though, that this fic will not be making sense. _I_ had problems figuring out what half of it meant.

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"Mokuba! I told you! I am NOT sick and I DON'T need someone to take care of me!" A pause. "Even if I _were_ sick and _did_ need someone to take care of me it would NOT be one of YUGI MOUTO'S FRIENDS!" Another pause. This one was for Seto to catch his breath. He had been ranting for the past ten minutes about how he wasn't sick and how he had work to do and how Mokuba had better untie him so he could get up and go to his work, and didn't Mokuba have to leave soon anyway for some appointment so he should _untie his older brother before he left_.

As such, Seto Kaiba was not in a very good mood. As much as he was denying it, he _was_ sick, and this made him miserable and unhappy. What made him even more miserable and unhappy was the fact that Mokuba had decided on his own that his idol/ultimate hero/big brother was sick. And Mokuba, having an engagement that he couldn't break, had asked one of Yugi Mouto's friends to come over and help take care of a person very unwilling to be taken care of.

Yugi had been too busy to come himself, and Mokuba thought better than to ask Jounouchi or Honda over to help. Toss in Anzu having some dance thing (with Mai and Shizuka going along to watch), and Mokuba didn't really have very many people left to ask.

Except. . .

And that's how Ryou Bakura ended up being led into the Kaiba mansion; not at all sure of what he was getting into.

Mokuba was already late for his appointment because of his brother's absolute denial regarding his health. This meant that he basically had to rush through instructions to Ryou, before blurring off.

". . .and don't let him have any coffee. At least not caffeinated, it won't be good for him because then he won't get any rest at all. He'll complain about the work piling up—don't let him anywhere near his office or his laptop or else you can forget about his recovery. If he tries to threaten you by calling guards, don't worry. I've already informed them all that Seto is delirious so they shouldn't listen to anything he says for at least another six hours." Mokuba took a deep breath and continued,

"I wouldn't let him out of his room-wing if I were you (not that it would be needed, there is a door that leads to a bathroom without windows—so he won't be able to climb out) and there is a number of soups heating up in the kitchen. I'd try the noodle soup first as that's his favorite but be aware that he might refuse to eat at first. Force him. I'll try to be home as soon as I can, but I really don't know how long this will take. Good luck with him!" And with a loud 'BIG BROTHER I'LL BE HOME SOON TRY TO GET BETTER!' the ten-year-old flew out of the room into the waiting limo and was gone.

Ten seconds of silence passed while Ryou processed all the information he was expected to memorize. Then he remembered just exactly where he was, and why he was there. Needless to say, Ryou made it up to Seto's room in all of eight seconds. (He got there with a two-second lead!)

A polite knock on the door got sullen silence. Kaiba was too busy wondering which friend-of-Yugi had come to "take care off him" (not that he needed it because _he wasn't sick darn it all_!) that he couldn't be bothered with allowing the friend-of-Yugi to actually come in so that Kaiba could identify him or her. The cold was definitely working its way into Seto's common sense.

After Ryou tried a more insistent knock, and then an all-out-almost-considered-rude bang on the door, he gave up with the whole "I'll wait until you grant me entry before I enter" thing, and just went in.

Kaiba was not amused. "And just who are you?" Obviously the cold had taken a toll on Kaiba's state of awareness too. Forgetting names was not something that he did very often. Of course, neither was getting sick.

"My name's Ryou," answered Ryou politely. "I'm a--"

"Friend of Yugi Mouto?" Kaiba cut in sourly. "Yes. I am _well_ aware of the humiliation my brother is putting me through. Anything else a bit less obvious you can tell me?" While the cold had taken over Seto's state of awareness, it had not attacked his sarcasm-and-snappy-comment section yet.

"Well. . um," Ryou was a bit taken aback to say the least, and he wasn't sure what Kaiba considered 'less obvious.' "Could I get back to you on that?" A pause. Seto spent this pause looking incredulously at Ryou, most likely due to his answer, and Ryou spent the pause wondering what he should say next.

"What was this about humiliation that your brother is putting you through?" There. That was a decent question.

Seto scowled, but answered. "I'm not a person who likes to have a debt. Especially one concerning gratitude. And _especially_ especially when I don't even need to have the debt because _I am not sick_!" Yup, Seto was still in denial. But Ryou being Ryou, he decided to take it in stride.

"Okay, fine. You aren't sick, but are you bored? If you aren't sick, I don't see any reason for you to just sit in bed with nothing to do." Seto perked up. Maybe he would be allowed to work! Ryou continued, "You should at least have something to keep you busy while you sit in bed."

"…"

"No suggestions at all?"

"There is a portable laptop on the desk in a room two doors down. If you brought that in for me, I might be able to get some work done." Ryou considered getting the laptop, until he remembered Mokuba's rushed words about nothing relating to work or Kaiba won't recover, and decided against it.

"Isn't there anything else you would like to do?" Seto shook his head.

"You mean aside from working, plotting to assassinate people and avoiding assassination (which can be considered working I suppose), you don't do anything? Even something like watching television?" Ryou asked, wide-eyed.

"I watch the news report. And stock info. Everything else I get off my computers." This time Seto almost smirked at Ryou's reaction. _He's fun to tease_. _Even more fun to tease when he thinks I'm serious._ Yes, in truth, Kaiba did watch T.V. He didn't watch that stupid Pokemon show (1) or anything, but he did watch the occasional Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho. There were other things too that he watched, but that is a subject that won't be extensively gone into right not.

"….all right," said the bewildered Ryou, "forget television then. Stocks are too much like work, and I can give you the weather and news report right now."

"Oh?" Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "So, give me the current weather report then."

Without hesitating or giving any indication to what he was about to do, Ryou marched over to Seto's closed and curtained windows, opened one, and stuck his head outside. After all of three seconds he withdrew his head from the window and closed it. His long white hair now looked a bit damp. Then without missing a beat,

"Wet."

Seto did not completely comprehend this declaration. "…What?"

Keeping a straight face, Ryou elaborated. "The current weather report is that it is wet outside. Meaning that it is currently raining. See?" he tugged lightly on his hair and grinned. "Wet."

Seto goggled. Then he blinked and just stared instead. He hadn't known that Ryou was so…what? Strange? Entertaining? Fun? No…not just any of those words. Maybe all of them but mixed. One thing was for certain though, Seto Kaiba found Ryou Bakura interesting to say the least.

"So," Ryou began, interrupting Seto's train of though. "Now that you have the weather report, what else can you think of to occupy your time?"

"…"

"Are you hungry?"

"…."

Ryou tried again. "Are you sure?"

"…yes." Perfect!

"Alright then! I'll be back in a few minutes with something for you." And He left the room.

Kaiba watched the white-haired boy leave, and he wondered why he had agreed to take care of him. He obviously wasn't being very kind to Ryou, and he wondered how Ryou felt about it. This was pretty strange, as usually; he did not care.

Meanwhile

Ryou was glad that he had the chance to leave Seto, if only for a bit. It would give time to think about how he could spend the rest of the day taking care of Kaiba without one of them ending up dead.

As he set the bowl and spoon on a tray, Ryou tried to think of things that would settle Kaiba down. Mokuba had mentioned some pills that would speed up his brother's recovery, but he had also mentioned that Seto had flatly refused to take them. Hm…

Ryou got the pills anyway, noticing that they were the dissolvable kind. With a daring idea forming, he dropped the pills into the bowl of hot soup, stirred it a few times to fully dissolve them, then proceeded to pick up the tray and head for Kaiba's room, hoping that the idea would work.

Seto appeared deep in thought when Ryou walked in. _So_ deep in thought in fact, that he had not even noticed when Ryou entered the room.

It was strange though, the way that Kaiba was sitting. He looked as if he was crossing his arms, but halfway through his right hand got cold. It was buried up to the elbows in covers. _In fact,_ Ryou thought _I don't think I've seen is right hand once the entire time I've been here._ Well, it was probably nothing anyway.

Ryou walked over to Kaiba's bed, and placed the tray down (Seto's head and snapped up when Ryou got close, but he allowed it). Seto gingerly took the spoon up in his left hand, and clumsily began to eat.

. . . . _left hand?_ "….um, Kaiba, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm eating soup." The usual Kaiba reply. Sarcastic, immediate, and not really answering anything.

"With your left hand? I was positive that you were a righty."

"I. Am."

"…..? Then--" Okay, the white-haired boy was confused now. He had plenty of reason to be, but it still didn't exactly make Kaiba happy.

Seto sighed almost angrily at Ryou's combination of curios-ness and confusion. "I can't use my right hand at the moment."

Ryou's look of confusion changed to one of concern, a look Seto had only seen on a few; Mokuba (he didn't mind it then) and Yugi Mouto or the puppy or the girl (hatehatehate). Seto wasn't sure if he minded the look now or not. Wait—Ryou was speaking wasn't he? "--wrong with your hand? Did you hurt it?"

Another sigh. This time it wasn't so much angry as it was exasperated. "No. I didn't hurt it." Slowly Seto withdrew his hand from its nest of covers and lifted it up for Ryou to see. Then something clinked.

Taking a closer look, the smaller boy noticed a ring of silver around Kaiba's wrist. And that was attached too--"That's not…is it? Um…"

Deciding to get it over quickly, Seto filled in Ryou's startled blanks. "It's a pair of handcuffs." He said, in monotone.

For the fourth time that day, Ryou's eyes widened. Something Seto might have thought to be very amusing if he wasn't at the moment burning with very un-Kaiba-like embarrassment.

"Wha? Why? I mean…"

Kaiba clarified. "Mokuba snuck them on so that I wouldn't leave the room and take care of the work that I have to get done."

A silence filled the room. Seto began to eat soup again (this time with his right hand, as he no longer had to hide the handcuffs) signaling that the conversation was ended, and Ryou had no idea what to say.

After the silence had begun to get pressing, (and Kaiba had finished almost all the soup), Ryou timidly spoke up. "Would—would you like me to unlock them? If…you know, if you told me where the key was, I could….maybe…"

He trailed off. Seto was staring at him with an eyebrow raised, and eyes bright with either amusement, the cold, or something else that Ryou could recognize.

"Fine."

"…what?"

"The keys are probably on the desk in my office. The one down the hall. If you find more than one key, just bring all of them and I'll figure it out." Sentence finished, Kaiba returned to finishing off his soup. Ryou scurried out of the room to get the keys.

After much searching, and finally coming up with a single key buried under a few papers stamped with "From The Desk Of Mokuba Kaiba," Ryou rushed back into Seto's room, hoping that he had not kept the sick teen waiting and thus getting him irritated.

However; when Ryou came into the room that Seto occupied, he instantly quieted down even more. The already sick boy had fallen asleep; most likely because of the medicinal soup. He was halfway under the covers lying on his left side, cheek pillowed in his left hand, and the restricted right hand a little away from his head. All in all it was a very pleasant scene to watch, and Ryou knew that he was probably one of the only people that had ever witnessed something like this.

So Ryou tip-toed over to the bedside and unlocked the handcuffs (thankfully the key worked), being careful not to make any unnecessary noise. As soon as Seto's hand was free, he instantly settled into a more comfortable position. He was sleeping so soundly that it made Ryou wonder just how sick Kaiba might have been. Either way, the younger boy knew that Seto's recovery time would be cut in half because of the sneaky medicine soup.

It was a very rewarding feeling.

Furthermore, when Mokuba came home an hour and a half later to find Kaiba still fast asleep and Ryou reading a book; the ten-year-old almost glomped the white-haired boy while trying to thank him for his success, asked a dozen questions about how on earth he had managed it, and begged Ryou to come over to help the next time Seto got sick.

Ryou didn't really have a problem with any of those three things.

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And….that would be the end of my first Yu-gi-oh fic (one-shot). To my knowledge, it was actually mostly fine. Except maybe for the fact that everyone was so OOC that I should probably not have even referred to them by their YGO names. .

Either way, comments and criticism are welcome and appreciated. I might even do more one-shots like this in the future.

(1) No offense meant to anyone who watches/likes Pokemon. I needed something that I thought Kaiba might insult, so I picked it. I have no idea what Seto might or might not watch, if he ever watched television. Work with me here?

Final Note: Yep. Plotless and mostly fluffy (I even did my trademark stuff-the-fluff-into-the-ending-because-the-one-shot-has-to-end-eventually). Whoa I am so predictable…O.o

And Koibito? Get better soon!!


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